Withdrawing her usual dagger, Eva slid it across her arm. She pulled at a thin strand of blood and began twisting it into a circle filled with intrinsic designs. Eva frowned as she worked. The wards in the abandoned hospital were done years ago when Eva first found the place. Back then her blood was far more human than today. Magic considered her current blood impure.
And it was as impure as it would get, hopefully. Further treatments should tip the scales back towards pure. Eva looked forward to when the treatments were complete. Not only should her blood be considered perfectly pure by whatever magics governed such things, but it would be powerful. As powerful as a fresh batch of Arachne’s blood.
Once satisfied with the design in front of her, Eva turned to the still seated Arachne. “Arm, please.”
Arachne held out a chitinous arm. She used her other clawed hand to slice straight into the armored exoskeleton. Eva lightly tapped the crystal edge of her dagger against the blood leaking over the black armor. Tapping too hard might have cracked the crystal, the dagger was not designed for even the lightest of combat.
Eva pulled a droplet of demon blood and placed it within the floating blood circle. “Not the full suite of protections, but should keep things who aren’t us out. Though I doubt we have much to worry about out here. Mostly wildlife.”
Eva walked over to the only bed in the room and took a seat, kicking her shoes off. Ignoring the spider-woman as she healed her arm, Eva said, “so, where is your bed?”
The panicked look that crossed Arachne’s face nearly sent Eva into a fit of laughter. “I– That’s–”
Eva set her clothes on the bedside table. The floor might look clean, but Eva wasn’t ready to test it just yet. A large rug, at least for this room, might be a nice addition. The cold stone floor didn’t look all that inviting.
Arachne had stood up and was looking about ready to lie down on that floor beside the bed when Eva took pity on the poor spider.
“Alright Arachne, it was just a joke. But,” Eva said with a single finger in the air, “I want your feet cleaned off before you climb under these sheets.”
The spider half ran from the room without another word. She returned a second later with a fluffy white towel. She made a show of sitting on the bed and rubbing down both of her feet. She flung the towel onto the dresser and snaked under the covers.
Eva made note of Arachne keeping away from her. Even when Eva brushed her arm to the side, the spider-demon wiggled away, keeping at least an inch between them. It was weird. The last time they had been in bed together, the spider-woman had completely latched onto her for the entire night. Of course, she was a tarantula at the time. Yet even earlier in the day, Arachne had carried her, took her by the hand, had an arm over her shoulder, and far more physical contact.
After five minutes of Arachne fleeing the second Eva made the slightest motion, Eva sighed. “It is fine, Arachne. You’re not going to kill me if you touch me.”
There was a moment where nothing happened.
Then, Arachne took her words as an invitation. A hard chitinous arm slid itself underneath Eva’s back until Arachne’s hand was at Eva’s far shoulder. Another arm slid over Eva’s breasts until it reached Arachne’s other hand. Long fingers gripped her shoulder and hugged her right into the spider-woman’s chest.
All motion ceased. Like a machine had been turned off. Except machines didn’t breathe into Eva’s ear. She turned her head slightly to find eight glowing red eyes and too many sharp white teeth twisted into a grin.
Eva straightened her neck out and went back to gazing at the ceiling. She actually could kill me with a touch, Eva thought. Not that she thought Arachne would kill her. It was good to remind herself sometimes that the creature next to her who had Eva in a kind and protective embrace was a demon and had killed countless people.
Then again. I probably share more blood with her than either one of my birth parents at this point. We are ‘sisters’ after all.
Eva fondled the small, black orb between her chest. She allowed herself to lean into the embrace, just slightly.
And like that they stayed until Eva passed into a deep sleep.
Chapter 011
Eva’s bed was empty once again this morning.
Ever since she disappeared for two days a few weeks ago, Eva spent the night someplace else about once a week. And she wouldn’t say where.
If Juliana had to guess, Eva ran around with her mentor going on fun adventures and bounty hunting.
But the girl didn’t trust Juliana. She avoided, dodged, deflected, or otherwise ignored any questions about herself. The times she did answer were either obvious lies or so vague they could describe anyone.
Then there was her obviously magical spider that Eva insisted was some generic tarantula. The spider that reappeared after a month ‘hunting’ right after Eva’s first disappearing act.
It still frustrated Juliana to no end that she had been unable to find the creature in any of the books she’d bought on creatures. That just meant it was in books not for student’s reading.
And that meant dangerous.
Hopefully at least. Juliana would be disappointed if it was just a rare tarantula.
If Mrs. Baxter hadn’t charged her with befriending the girl, Juliana probably would have found a different friend. Maybe even more than one.
She sighed as she stepped into the shower. I might be being hard on the girl. As long as personal questions were avoided, she wasn’t that bad. Plus she knew all kinds of crazy things.
Chaos magic and runes? What kind of first year knows chaos magic, not to mention doesn’t know what chaos magic is. What kind of anyone knows runes?
The runes were another puzzle. A puzzle that made Juliana money, but a puzzle nonetheless. Juliana looked up some runes not long after their business got going, mostly looking for other types of runes they could sell. She found a way to make an area unscryable. But the book listed around three characters. Eva’s anti-scrying papers covered the entire sheet. Either Eva was very bad at runes or those papers did a lot more than stop scrying.
Though, to be fair, they stopped scrying very well. The headache she had after testing lasted half a day. That had not been a happy day.
As long as the extra runes weren’t hurting anyone, Juliana didn’t much care. Though she felt they should be charging extra for whatever extra features were on their rune papers.
Juliana almost felt bad. Eva’s runes were over half of the Rickenbacker and business was spreading across the street without any effort on Juliana’s part. Eva had to spend hours drawing out and charging the runes while Juliana just delivered and got money.
Juliana pushed thoughts of her wayward roommate from her mind. She had her own plans for the day.
To say the area around Brakket Academy was dull would be an understatement. The ‘entertainment’ district and shopping areas had worn themselves out within two weeks. While Eva seemed happy to read through the library, and Juliana didn’t mind either, books were missing that spark of excitement Juliana needed.
Eva might be keeping from going stir crazy with whatever weekly escapades she disappeared on, but Juliana had nothing of the sort.
Her mother would never have taken her on any of her bounties. The few safaris she’d been on with her parents didn’t give her the exciting tales her father had.
Her solution might be a poor man’s substitute, but in the boring town of Brakket, Juliana would take what she could get.
She pulled open the drawer of her desk that held all of her exploring gear. She dumped the contents, a notebook and pens, a map of the town, a heavy-duty flashlight, gloves, binoculars, and rope, into her backpack. She checked the battery level of her camera and grabbed a few bottles of water from the fridge along with a few granola bars.